Alvin Koo's Blog

Entrepreneurship could not be better represented than by Terracycle. In brief, Terracycle started in 2001 by Tom Szaky, a student at Princeton University. He was very passionate when he witnessed a friend feed food scraps to worms to produce fertilizer and hereafter fully invested himself by putting in all his savings into creating worm-poop fertilizers. His big break came when he signed a deal with Wal-Mart and started producing huge quantities of fertilizers. Big box retailers thought his idea was innovative. According to Schumpeter’s definition of entrepreneurship, Terracycle achieved innovation in all four categories:

1. worm-poop fertilizer (product)
2. soda pop bottle as fertilizer container (production methods)
3. riding the Green Wave (new market)
4. hired ex-convicts, parolees, veterans (new forms of organization)

Terracyle is now a huge business from first sales of $500,000 in 2005 to multimillions in 2009.

Tom meets every criterion on the checklist for entrepreneurs. He had great passion in what he was doing and believed in his vision of corporate social responsibility. Besides investing all his savings he also dropped out of Princeton to commit to his business. Very few people have the same persistence in a vision, making his characteristics that of a small percent of the population.

http://www.terracycle.net/history/2001

In discussion of strategies and tactics, one of the most interesting and dynamic changes of tactics is Donald Trump’s introduction of Trump Tea. Whenever the Trump Organization is brought up people would relate it to real estate developments or entertainment resorts. However, Donald Trump is now introducing tea, a food product far from any relevance to the real estate industry. Without prior knowledge to the lecture on strategy and tactic, one would have assumed that Donald Trump was completely changing his business strategy by steering it towards the foods industry, but this was not the case. Introducing tea is just a tactic Donald Trump is using to address needs of a specific target market for a specific need. The Trump Tea is intended to please high-end businessmen who prefer a lifestyle where they can eat and drink the best. In the macro level the Trump Organization still remains concentrated in operations in the real estate market, tea can only be seen as just a side business. Other than producing quality drinks for the target market, the tea also reinforces the popularity of Donald Trump amongst the high-end users of this product, thus becoming a product of networking as well.

http://www.shoppingblog.com/blog/8181023

“Moving money through time” was the catch line that I received from the lecture on finance with Murray Carlson. In application to the real world, households are similarly moving money through time whenever they purchase a new home. However I am quite aware that a house would go down in value every year, and thus people would be losing money in real estate. The actual reason that people can make money off buying homes is the land/property that they are buying.

For instance, in a game of Monopoly the property deeds are always more valuable yet expensive than the houses you build on the land. When players trade land for money the price called would always be inflated based on the expected revenue (rent) that that property can earn for the investor. This expected value is what investors are willing to pay, and for the seller is the money that could be earned in the future but brought to the present through this trade. From applications of finance and trade in a board game like Monopoly I have realized the importance that financial strategies can make in deciding investment behavior.

In reflection of the discussion on online social media and management information systems, I happened to come across this article where Paypal has launched a new smartphone “app” which allows users to deposit and cash cheques by taking a picture of it. The line of inventions seem to be getting more creative and innovative as companies become aware of the power of MIS and the internet. Paypal is now effectively rivaling against banks and other financial institutions in a race to provide financial services virtually in the Internet. From being accessible online, Paypal has out beaten banks and ATMs in convenience to customers.

However in terms of MIS, the article has leaded me to question Paypal’s information technology capacities to undertake such operations. Depositing cheques online by taking photos of the cheques seems like a risky choice for both the customer and Paypal themselves. In the customer’s point of view, there is always the risk of cheques not being cashed properly and the money ending up not being deposited. On the other hand, Paypal may lose money due to fraudulent cheques and photographic images of cheques neglects the purpose of anti-counterfeit features of the original.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/10/08/con-cheque-app.html

Intense rivalry between Apple’s new iPhone 4 and Research in Motions’ Blackberry Torch has created a desperate race to find a point of differentiation in hopes to gain market share over one another. In comparison of the two products, it would be fair to claim that both products are equivalent in terms of features and benefits. Despite this fact, Apple appears to have the upper hand in the smart phone market and in general much more popularity and brand loyalty over RIM. In response, RIM has concentrated on enhancing their security in protection of customer’s calls and text messages.

Points of differentiation must be unique selling points that competitors are unable to recreate and Blackberry has done well with their “encryption” specialties. However, RIM runs into trouble with the Indian government exactly over these security issues. In the face of possible boycott from the Indian government, RIM has still managed to compromise with the Indian government yet maintaining the protection of encrypted information for their customers. This offered RIM a good P.o.D in how the company resisted change and insisted in valuing customer privacy. Strong brand loyalty may possibly be accomplished because of such strong company values.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/09/24/rim-blackberry-india-deal.html

The accumulator, a well-known financial product, sold by banks has deemed the name “I kill you later” after astronomical losses suffered by investors who bought this product. Investments do have their ups and downs but the buyer assumes risks. Despite this fact there seems to be another lurking variable contributing to the cause of loss other than the natural course of business. The victims of accumulators have complained and even sued, fighting on the grounds of poor practices by the banks who only praises the benefits of accumulators but withholds the vital information on the magnitude of losses from the customer. Full disclosure of the contract’s pros and cons would probably have prevented the victims from losing fortunes simply because the accumulator itself had limited up sides and bottomless downfalls. The ethical issue comes down to whether the onus falls on the investor to find out the product details or the bank to provide this detail. This poses a case similar to RyanAir who does not disclose necessary information on additional charges. Concealing obligatory information on the disadvantages of a deal, as part of the firm’s advertising strategy, is unethical especially when the firm successfully closes deals by these means.

http://www.ifa-sg.com/scientist-sues-bank-for-accumulator-structured-product/

Comm 101, here i come